This is another graphic novel for tweens and older, but unlike Marzi, a memoir, War Brothers is a fictionalized account of real events that have occurred in contemporary Uganda. War Brothers is about the fates of four friends as they fall under the domination of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA fills its ranks with kidnapped children who are tortured and traumatized until they either die or become child soldiers for Kony, who thinks of himself as some sort of anointed representative […]
A 10-Year-Old’s View of Life Behind the Iron Curtain
This 2011 graphic novel, which is kid-friendly, is Marzena Sowa’s memoir of childhood in Poland in the 1980’s, the time of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, Pope John Paul II, Chernobyl, and the ordinary every day life of a 10 year old. It’s beautifully told with humor, sadness, and ultimately optimism. I think tweens would identify with Marzi’s hopes, joys and frustrations, while also getting an education about life behind the Iron Curtain just before it started to fall. In many ways, Marzi is a fairly typical […]
What’s Behind Your Mask/Cannonball!
Eileen is the debut novel of writer Ottessa Moshfegh, whose short stories have been featured in Paris Review and have won prestigious prizes. The action is set during the week leading up to Christmas in 1964, but this is far from a heartwarming holiday tale. It is dark, twisted and suspenseful. Readers who enjoyed The Dinner or The Care of Wooden Floors or Gone Girl will be delighted. We have a narrator who is seems honest, but what kind of person is she really? Eileen, […]
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
Gloria Steinem’s latest book is part auto-biography and part political philosophy. Steinem examines her early years with her family, a seminal trip to India, and her subsequent political activity through the prism of travel. Steinem presents a brief history of post-war US feminism here as well as the links between feminism and other civil rights’ movements. Steinem’s goal is to inspire readers to take risks, pursue dreams, and connect, to speak up but also to listen. As she has famously said, she does not want […]